I'm 'bout tired again of hearing all these pansy liberals whine about the war in Iraq. What would they rather have, Saddam Hussein in power with his torture chambers and rape rooms? That is what would happen if we didn't strike back at those who hit us on that date which lives in infamy 9/11. If liberals had their way, we would all be speaking Islam and worshiping Mohammed right now under the crescent flag. I'm proud of my country and don't enjoy being told it's not the best country by elites with fancy degrees. We are the best country ever because GOD has chosen America.

Pat Riot:
Who hit us again on 9/11? I could be wrong, but I swear I think I read you implying it was Iraq. You seem to be permanently stuck in 2002. Perhaps you'd like to make use of the five year*s worth of information we now have since then...which shows how manipulated we were. Own up to it, the rest of the country has.

Pat Riot, who is this "we" of whom you speak -- the "we" whom you expect to strike back for your comfortable little benefit? It most assuredly isn't you, safely typing your bigotted comments in the little box. It's ironic that the idea of worshipping "Mohammed" horrifies you, yet in the same breath you proclaim that GOD has chosen America. You're simply the other side of the religious bigot coin. You object to having Islamic beliefs shoved down yout throat, yet want to shove your own religious beliefs down other people's throats. How very, very unAmerican.

God loves everyone without looking on his/her background, religion, nation. If God loves just Jews it means that only Jews would have been on the Earth. If God hates non-cristians they would be on hell, but Japanese, Korean and Chinese more honorable,righteous, prosperous than those truly believers of God. If God loves just cristians it means just they would be on Earth. If God loves just righteous persons it means that only they would be on Earth. Common guys, all of this stuff which we are talking is out-of-dated. God loves all of us. He wants us peace, love and understanding. If we try understand each other, respect each other, communicate each other, don't try convince that only we are right persons on Earth it is only one way to God and prosperity. Our all problems that we divided by not only by religions, languages and also by arrogancy, misconceptions and hatry

I'm convinced that "Pat Riot" is not a real person but some comedian's proxy for the dumbest qualities of the American dialogue and debate. You'd have to be a Jonathon Swift or a Voltaire to do a better job of satirizing stupidity.

That was a pretty stupid post, Pat Riot.
It was one thing to overthrow Saddam, admittedly a monster. It was quite, quite another to overlook the fact that the Iraqi army largely abstained from the war, and abolish them and the Baath party anyway. And to allow the hospitals and national museums to be looted. And talk of permanent American bases in Iraq. And propose a national flag that resembled Israel's. And be more concerned with introducing American style capitalism than the jobs lost by poor people by shutting down state-owned factories. Oh yeah, and making our troops fight inadequately armored and being extremely criminally negligent in correcting the problem.
If you're gonna do something really, really risky and provocative to billions of people, you really gotta be competent about it. These guys have been so incompetent it's easy to get paranoid and wonder what their real goal is. That crooked smile on Cheney's face is quite scary. Dr. Strangelove anyone?

Is it right that muslims in a name of God kill innocent people. Is it right that american who are truly believers in God kill innocent people. Is it right that Bush who keeps Bible in his hand send young guys to destroy prosperous country, to bring chaos in every home there. How he can say that he is a cristian doing such wrongdoings. Is it right to see everyday on TV bloodshed, crying, suffer and torture in Iraq, revel that muslims kill each other and think that americans are not guilty. Lets's compare what's the cost of life of american soldier and innocent Iraqis. 3000 USA soldiers and 100000 or 500000 Iraqus. We don't account even how many Iraqis have been killed.

Beinart should turn in his credentials as a journalist. To admit that he thought Grenada and Panama were real wars rather than PR extravaganzas shows shocking Naïveté.

Of course that just means that he's as dumb as Bush. He actually thought Iraq would be a cake walk and give him a reason not to have to repeat the Soviet's experience in Afghanistan.

It is interesting that none of the commentators cited actually volunteered for the wars they promoted in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the $$$ cost must be paid by our grandkids the American human cost of their debacle must of course be paid by others as well. Want to see quick victory in the Iraq war? Get those Bush girls and the 18+ sons and daughters of every member of Congress and even any of them under 50 in uniform and in combat in Sadr City. That will concentrate their minds.

These guys,ie "THE BUSH CRIME FAMILY", are not stupid or wrong. From thier prospective this has been a very profitable venture---hundreds of billions of dollars have been stolen--and so far they are going to get away with it!

Methinks God hates all humans. Otherwise, s/he wouldn't have made us so stupid!

Pat Riot is a troll, get over it. Trolls are best handled by ignoring them, therefore, let us begin.

re: watching the lights come on --- Yep, it-s fun to watch these hawks and war boosters realize they were wrong about Bush-s War of Choice. AND, they were wrong on SO MANY FRONTS. Take the money, some predicted 2b max. Take the time, we-d be in and out by now. Take WMD-s, yep, Bush said we were sure to find them. Take the candy and flowers we-d be offered on arival. Take the strategic issues like strengthening Iran. Take the idea that there-d be no Civil War. Take the idea that we could remake Iraq as a democracy, with privatized oil infrastructure that American companies could just gobble up. --- One has to ask how could you beltway morons been so wrong on so many fronts? Well, you were arragant, you didn-t listen to ALL American voices, AND, you projected your wants and dreams outward onto a -new fronteer- you could exploit. The very concept of -fronteer- is very American. WE after all, went West, and conquered our own fronteer, and obiviously, we say Iraq as just another fronteer to conquer and master.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030201143.html
is the article from Khalilzad and the new oil law in Iraq. Beginning of partitioning Iraq? Allowing oil companies to do production sharing deals? Soldiers to be replaced by American oil workers (like Iran 30-35 years ago)? No wonder the conference on Iraq has been held back until this law goes thru! All of a sudden, every one wants peace and quiet and harmony and friendship.....

Hindsight being 20/20, this is what would have been the best line of action back in 2002: After defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US administration should have cozied up with Saddam, even propped him up to be an effective wedge between Syria and Iran. They should have made him their new best buddy in the Middle East and, to make it sound a bit nicer, enlisted him to join the big Shmar on Shmerror. Oh, things would be so much quieter and stable in the Middle East now, and Big Oil would not complain either. Oh, terror chambers and rape rooms? Bad, very bad, of course. Not nice. Then again, the Iraq war never has been about these - and had huminatarian considerations ever played a part in geopolitcs, we'd have US soldiers in Darfur by now.

After 9-11, Bush should have drafted 2 to 4 million men and conquered all our enemies in 19 months. In April 1917, Congress declared war. We had about 200 thousand men in the military including guard.

By May 1917 we had 1 million in France and 2 million total. By Nov 1917, 19 months later, we had 2 million in France, 4 million total and had defeated the Kaiser, the Hapsburg Empire and the Ottoman Empire, our main enemies.

We can do that now. We have 22 months left under Bush. That is enough time to raise an army and defeat Iran, surround and blockade Pakistan to denuke it, denuke NoKo and make Saudi Arabia separate religion and state.

To those reacting against Pat+Riot in the first post:

If you read his post you'll see that it is composed entirely of wingnut talking points on the Iraq war, and that it is crafted as snark.

Unfortunately, given the latest CBS poll, 29% of Americans are still buying it.

So Pat Riot argues it was necessary to attack Iraq to strike back at those who attacked the United States on 9/11. My thoery is that Pat Riot is Dick Cheney.

Pat Riot has being a riot down pat. If he, or she, actually exists and is not being comedic then he/she is a lot more scary than Iraq's non-WMD.

Mistaken liberals may have added their voices in support of a misbegotten war, but let's not forget the real culprits behind this tragic misadventure: American Neocons, including their outright adherents in the Bush Administration or at least their willing acolytes.

Never before in American history has such a well-identified group of ideologues seized control of the US Government. On the day they took power in what amounted to a judicial-arranged coup d'etat, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney proceeded to place those Neocons in power throughout the policy-making security apparatus of the USG. These political appointees did not just take physical possession of their offices. They proceeded to neutralize any shred of remaining dissent to their pre-set, ideologically-driven set of policies. Anyone with expertise or experience were effectively silenced or forced to give up their positions.

They Neocons then proceeded to do exactly what they had said they would do: start a war with Iraq. They left no doubt about their objective: they would establish a stable democracy in Iraq which, in turn, would become the model for democratizing the entire Middle East, with grateful pro-US regimes throughout the region. Israel's secure future and US access to oil would be secure for eternity.

Once the Neocons drove Saddam and the Baathists from power, they encountered the awful truth: their program was nothing but a house of cards. The bunch of thugs who led the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds were impervious to democracy. Iraq would not only not become a democracy, it would slide ever more rapidly into ethnic, tribal, and religious warfare. Far from being a beacon of US success, Iraq would become a black hole of US failure.

The Iraqis, the Neocons found, would continue to act like Iraqis--or more accurately, the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish Mafia thugs would continue to act like Mafia thugs. Iraqi "politics" would remain what it had always been: a turf war among Mafia families, who did not give a tinker's damn about democracy.

In sum, Iraq would play out exactly as the experts had said it would. Time has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that those exiled, neutralized experts were right and the Neocons were wrong.

Believing today that Neocons have anything worthwhile to say about US foreign policy or have any credibility is like believing that proponents of cold fusion should have a voice in shaping our energy future. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feif, Charles Krauthammer, addle-brained Adelman--they have all been proven to be fools. They are proven idiots. Why the media continue to give these fools a platform for their thoroughly discredited policies and outlook defies the human imagination. Like the proponents of cold fusion, they should be relegated to the obscurity they so richly deserve.

Old Atlantic -- wow, that is far and away the most reality-free post I have read from the wingnutosphere in some time. In *only* 22 months we could -- with some mythical Army of draftees -- not only invade and defeat Iran (who hasn't attacked us or even threatened us, unlike Germany in 1917), but also our supposed allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, plus North Korea for good measure. Whatever you are smoking, Old Atlantic, please share it with the rest of the class as you obviously emailing while impaired. OK, I will stop insulting you and just point out that if the US cannot win a war w/ Iraq, which is much smaller than Iran, more ethinically fractured, and geographically easier to get around, how exactly does your deluded mind think we are going to invade (and with what Army, again?) the far dodgier prospect of Iran? Especially given that they know the terrain and will fight tooth-and-nail against imperialist invaders who only want their oil (which is how you would see it too if you lived there). In short, Old Atlantic, you are a moron and a fool.

The hindsight of editors and writers is frequent, particularly of late. What I find most interesting are the comments posted that unfortunately show me a citizenry as clearly divided as the parties, angry and unreasonable. That said, if Pat Riot is so glad Mr. Hussein was ousted, what does he think of the countries that armed Hussein and supported him for years?

shallow journalism is the order of the day. We see only part of what is happening and make big splashy head lines. Journalism has more to do with spreading lies than truth. One sided news that too cleverly edited is not news, it is commentary on news. Amrican dead in Iraq is a holy number that seems to be the whole story of war. What about the other side. Do we care. What affect it has on the people of Iraq, middle east, muslims. What kind of lies are being preached by muslim clerics that are fanning the present killings of inncont muslims by muslims, by muslims of others. The media should not treat americans as a bunch of idiots. Give then full news. Let them know the truth so that they can participate in the affairs of the country. Statistical surveys based on half truth has become a fashion. What is their real value. So many of our representatives are now backing out from their stand on war which they authorised. WHY.
It is time to reinvent the wheel.

Now that the lapdogs of Congress have been cleared out, at least an open dialogue can get an airing. I just love the way these guys (DC) do the slash and burn attack on anyone who does not agree with them (and their delusions).
An article in WaPo yesterday pointed to a political distribution in our country that I found disturbing. I had assumed a normal bell curve , but these guys indicate that is not the case and it may be true. There is an awful lot of polarization afoot.
I am afraid we are stuck with two more years of adminstrative insanity until we can get a replacement.These blogs are very helpful to see who is out there and what they are thinking. How do I keep my feet on the ground pondering that everyone in here votes?

here's what we won't hear:
we won't hear GW Bush say "I was wrong."
we also won't hear GW Bush say: "The buck stops here."

A girl got a pet goat. She liked to go running with her pet goat. She played with her goat in her house. She played with her goat in her yard. The goat ate things. He ate cans and he ate canes. He ate pans and he ate panes. He even ate capes and caps. But the goat did some things that made the girl's dad mad...

The "pre-war consensus between liberal democracies and great powers was a chief cause of Iraqi misery" and "enabled Saddam to 'tighten his grip' while 'using the people he was starving as a prop for world sympathy'"? Is Lake implying that Ronald Reagan, George Bush (1) and Donald Rumsfeld--all of whom assisted Saddam Hussein in "tightening his grip" and starving his people--were liberal democrats? Amusing how they rewrite history to fit their ideologies.

'pat' is one of those guy's with a degree, laughing at his 'inciteful prowess". that, or he's a gieco hatin' caveman.
he'd have to be operating from a new country. the country of "god" aka crusades ..ideological war.in which, he's hoping the last man standing's a white skinned bible lovin sob..ridiculous

Pat Riot, you realize that there are many, many more tourture and rape rooms across the globe. Many, if not most of them are in countries that the Bush administration regards as allies. Is it our responsibility to rid the world of all torture and rape? Is our mission to rid the world of evil or die in the effort? Saddam was a fly on our ass and his "torture and rape rooms" had NOTHING to do with why the neocons wanted to invade Iraq. I suspect you understand all this but are hoping, as the Neocons are, that most Americans are too dumb to figure all this out.

Amazing that amyone can believe military force is or can be a "constructive" element in resolving this world's problems of coexistence.
The moral "clarity" of WWII has continued to mislead the American Right into delusions of virtue for more than half a century now.
9/11 has had a similar effect: "We" are obviously morally superior to "them" no matter what We do, right?
Wrong.
War is failure; at best a last, final, desperate resort when all else has failed.
Killing is wrong.
Torture is wrong.
Deluding ourselves that the world's largest and most sophistcated killing machine is a tool for establishing peace and justice is... wrong.

Boo-Hoo!
Toppling Hussein remains our biggest achievement in foreign affairs since the Cuban Missile crisis. Look to the real wimps: the weak-kneed HW Bush and congress that allowed him to stay in power in 1991.
That mistake began a 12 year desert dance that was simply ugly and this inaction against him and other terrorists like Al Queda came home to roost on that sad September day. No Hussein wasnt linked to 9-11, but our impotence against him surely emboldened his wantabees--like Bid Laden.
Hussein had welcomed the likes of Yasin (WTC bomber of 1993), Nidal, and Abbas.
He attempted to assassinate HW in 1993.
He became the first world leader to embrace suicide bombers by publicly paying bounties to suicide bombers' families starting in 2000. Yea, he was a standup guy.
Voters sent a message in 11/2002, flipping seats like Wellstone's to Republicans: topple Hussein. 2004 elections clearly reaffirmed the war--like it or not. Yes, it's tough over there but we better get it right. If only we had dumped Hussein before he made suicide bombing chic....
The last elections clearly asked for new war stratagies, and let's hope leadership on the Hill can deliver it. Maybe they can
find a 21st century U Grant.

The real problem with the war in Iraq is that the United States has no one in goovernment who knows how to fight a war.

this comment was a plant to see what the reaction would be to the column. it's just a way of doing a poll of readers and how many will respond to an wingnut position.

We are the best country ever because GOD has chosen America.

Posted by: Pat Riot | March 3, 2007 01:09 AM

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!! Oh my dog! what a moron!

When a president's approval rating falls below 30%, as Bush's has, ... Presidential paralysis emboldens our foreign adversaries to challenge us more aggresively."

Now then...who's REALLY emboldening the terrorists?

Speaking of appologies, did Ceci Connolly and others at the Post ever appologize for the hit job they did on Al Gore before the 2000 election?

Appologies seem to be the way of life now. Getting it right is more important than getting it wrong and appologizing four or five years later. That is just poor journalism with poor character, either liberal or conservative. Perhaps being correct is more important than being read.

Par Riot must be the pen name of Sean Hannity. I have heard him say these exact words plus the ultimate insanity: "The sound of gunfire in Iraq is the sound of fredom on the march."

Pat Riot, you're just worried because if Saddam still owned his "torture chambers and rape rooms" that the US would have nowhere to torture and rape IT's enemies.

"What would they rather have, Saddam Hussein in power with his torture chambers and rape rooms?"

Or the United States in power with torture chambers and rape rooms at Abu Ghraib?

Boo Hoo Jim thinks the 2002 elections *clearly affirmed the war*, but in the 2006 elections we merely *clearly asked for new war strategies*. Boo Hoo Jim clearly either isn't awfully clear about what clear means or he's clearly in need of clarity. In 2006, we decided we want out, Jim. That's clearly clear.

Pat Riot is Jeff Gannon, he's still employed Rove but now covertly.

"OK, I will stop insulting you and just point out that if the US cannot win a war w/ Iraq, which is much smaller than Iran, more ethinically fractured, and geographically easier to get around, how exactly does your deluded mind think we are going to invade (and with what Army, again?) the far dodgier prospect of Iran?"

Where did you stop insulting? We defated Iraq. We lost about 177 killed in the ground combat phase. Iran has a total military less than twice that of Iraq.

Guadalcanal lasted 4 months and we lost about 1500 killed. Same in Tet offensive. We can defeat Iran with the army we have in Iraq. The original post said to institute a draft and draft 2 to 4 million men.

In April 1917, we had 200k total and in May 1918 we had 1 million in France and 2mm there by Nov 1917 when we won. We have a larger army now and a larger population so we can easily match this mobilization.

"In short, Old Atlantic, you are a moron and a fool. Posted by: Christian in NYC | March 3, 2007 06:19 AM "

Sure that wasn't Muslim in Tehran?

If I were an alien from the planet BARFO in some distant galaxy sent here to study this planet for possible inclusion in an intergalactic federation of planets, I would be force to report back to my superiors that this planet had not achieved a level of intelligence sufficient for them to be a part of any cooperative enterprise. The planet is chockful of emptyheaded buffoons filled up with preposterous certitudes constantly seeking to establish dominance over one another for the purpose of establishing some silly ideological agenda growing out of excessive nationalism, jingoistic urges and old religious supertitions that we had put behind us long ago.

Just a smattering of some of the silly, "my ideology is better than your ideology" claptrap put out on this blog is sufficient to convince me that we are a society headed right back into the dark ages from whence this sort of thinking originated. Most laughable is the spectre of an America that boasts the most lethally advanced military on the planet, the most powerful economic force ever created, possessed of incredible technology that could--if used for the betterment of man--spread porosperity and health around the world, wallowing in paranoia, fear and xenophobia and peddling the ridiculous nonsense that a handful of wretched malcontents with a religious zealotry of their own are somehow going to take over the entire world.

It is almost as if God, wanting to rid his Heaven of the most wretched, unintelligent, mentally deficient, socially challenged, anti-intellectual, emotionally unhinged part of the host of Heaven, had decided to send all of them down at once in one generation of stupid idiots. And now that generation of mental defectives is in charge of our world, the most deranged, comically silly, being at the head of our own beloved nation.

Binky:
Your "folks" won--congrats. That's what elections are about so enjoy your victory.
Yet, the war is even now escalating so accept reality: Dems arent stopping it.
We went to war in 2002 because so many Dem politicians voted for it, along with Repubs.
Those Dems who were against it, i.e even an icon like VP Mondale, lost in crucial elections.
I only try help readers of WaPo and NYT, who are spoon fed pablum from journalists who are rank and file Democrats( like Froomkin), understand many of us were, and still are, unabashed fans of removing the Hussein family. Wherever the future takes us, it cant be any worse than a world ruled by Hussein offspring.
The ball is in Pelosi and Reid's court--express your sentiments to them

Perhaps cynically, I am beginning to believe more and more that we should leave this losing war exclusively to the people who concocted it. That being, of course, the neocons and their Republican sponsors. This sinking ship has already harmed America, and will no doubt do us further harm, but options to improve the situation are few. Better, I think, to begrudgingly tolerate our weakened state while the neocons and Republicans continue to destroy themselves in agonizing, slow defeat. This is a Republican war, first and foremost. Let them be permanently ascribed in history as twisted ideologues and losers. Let the rest of us repeatedly remind the world of this horrific reality. Thus marginalized and disempowered, the right-wing will be confined to decades in the political wilderness, and America's future might well become brighter.

Jaxas, I wish you had had more space to express your views. However, your post implies if we take it as true that we should not let Pakistan keep its nukes nor let Iran get them.

How do we deter Pakistan from using nukes on us, when we let them help kill our troops in Afghanistan if not actually on 9-11?

"What would they rather have, Saddam Hussein in power with his torture chambers and rape rooms? " Pat Riot | March 3, 2007 01:09 AM

I think Begala wants Clinton back with his rape room and IRS audits of the women victims. He also wants Kennedy backing him up.

*Wherever the future takes us, it cant be any worse than a world ruled by Hussein offspring.*

Holy Shiite, they were about to take over the world now? You got here just in time, Batman.

i have to say, i don't know what hope remains for this country if so many of its citizens are determined deniers of reality, which is nicer than saying INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE OBVIOUS. yes, saddam was a bad man. so was pinochet. so was ceaucescu. so was robert mugabe. so is kim jong il. so is khadafy. why do we not feel the same urgency to take them down? keep in mind that THERE HAS BEEN NO PROOF of iraqi involvement in 09.11, and that what was offered as proof by the lying sack o' s___ we call dick cheney was pretty quickly and pretty convincingly dismissed by the c.i.a. in response, of course, cheney set up his own independent intelligence agency, charges with telling him what he wanted to hear. now, where else have i heard of invented facts / subjective reality? see orwell, george.

The moral "clarity" of WWII has continued to mislead the American Right into delusions of virtue for more than half a century now.
Sean Kirk makes a profound point (I call it profound because I have often thought along the same lines) when he points to WWII as the starting point of the ideological foundation that allows the US to believe it can invade countries and produce positive results. WWII was the equivalent of the Spanish Armada for the16th century English. It gave them the perception that they were God's chosen and created an overly determinate perception of good verse evil.
Editorialists love pointing out the similarities between Vietnam and Iraq (and Old Atlantic bizarrely equates it with WWI), but I think the ideological climate has a lot more to do with WWII then with Vietnam. Until we begin to really think of WWII as an anomaly, that is a moral justifiable war which is also extremely popular, we will continue to get ourselves into these problems.
I don't think, however, that Krik goes far enough when he points to the American Right as the only ones suffering from this moral "clarity". WWII has created a narrative that has saturated the political spectrum in America. Everybody needs to think seriously about our role in the world and the nature of good and evil. Remember all of our enemies can't be Nazis.

Its scary that people continue to believe the President's mantra after all that has occurred. The beliefts of Old Atlantic and Pat Riot are prime examples of the arrogance and self-righteousness of this Administration - might makes right, God is on our side.

The US makes up only 5% of the world population, but because we are the wealthest and strongest nation, we apparently have the right to impose our will and "we know better" attitude to those not as strong as us. Anytime one uses religion as rationale for position or action that adversely impacts others, there is danger to everyone.

How much suffering has this Administration caused and for what end and how many Americans and innocent Iraqis lives have been lost in pursuit of a grand plan based on arrogance and self-rightousness? We invaded Iraq, which had no involvement with 911, a secular country in a region of increasing religious radicalism and opened a pandora's box.

What is especially disturing is that most of the subseqent events to the invasion were not unexpected by knowledgable non-political experts in and outside of our government. But the Administration chose to push its own vision.

Lets hope that we learn from this tragedy.

Only a matter of time before Americans came to realize that they have no monopoly on virtue on the world scene.

Talking about whether a person was for or against the Iraq War may seem interesting but it is completely irrelevant. The question is what the US does about the war now. Do we initiate a strategic redeployment or retreat or just outright surrender as the Democrats want? No matter what they call it Democrats want us to throw in the towel and hand Al-Quada and the jihadists an enormous victory over the world's only super power. That is a disastrous scenario both for the credibility of this country and for the people of Iraq who will be slaughtered in the aftermath of our leaving. It will encourage the jihadists to take over the entire Middle East. I was a Democrat all my life but when it became clear that they have become the party of peace at any price I did the unthinkable- joined the other party. When Reagan was putting the screws on the Soviets, we Democrats attacked Reagan. Reagan defeated the Soviets- no Democrat ever thought that was possible. Democrats have adopted a defeatist frame of mind, something that FDR, Truman and Kennedy would have found cowardly and reprehensible.

Let us not forget that the WaPo itself was one of the biggest cheerleader's to the Iraq War, with its parade of editorials encouraging and supporting it.

In hindsight, the editorial team for this period will go down as a reprobate bunch.

I've read all the responses to my initial post. I ain't no troll, I ain't no plant. I'm an American, first and last. All you liberals who want us to surrender and wave the white flag in Iraq - what do you think will happen next? They'll follow us home and instead of fighting them on the streets of Bagdad, we'll fight them in Washington, Des Moines, Topeka and LA and NY. Now, I'm ready to take them on if I must, but isn't it better to let our heroes fight them in Bahgdad? After all, if the terrorists end up fighting us in our country, they will have a sympathetic ally in the media-hollywood-university complex. Do you think the terrorists who hit us on that date of infamy 9/11 will just go home from Iraq and live in peace if we wave the flag of surrender in Iraq? They'll follow us home. Wars end in 2 ways- defeat or victory. I know which one I prefer- do you?

http://www.tribuneindia.com/1999/99sep04/world.htm#8

With the exception of Isreal in the Old Testament, God doesn't choose countries, countries choose God. The Bible tells us through both the Hebrew and Christian point of view that God is Lord and lover of all people.

If GOD loves America then why has he given most of our money to China? When they declare war against us, they won't have to fire a shot, all they have to do is dump our Iraq war money they are holding onto the market, we will be bankrupt

Pat Riot, I agree with you. The problem is Bush is bringing home refugees from Iraq. He has brought 7000 home. He and Kennedy are together on this. He is bringing them here to fight us here. Bush needs to go after Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia not bring
them here to fight us here.

A few points on Pat Riot's last response:

He is apparently okay with tens of thousands of deaths given our decision of taking the battle to the terrorists. However how many of those that died were actually terrorists - children, women and the elderly? Add the adult men - the far majority are just innocent people stuck in a hellish nightmare, not of their own doing. How many more must die?

He also assumes that we have to win, but at what cost? What if the surge doesn't work? How many more deaths - 100,000, 500,000 or 1,000,000. Then what?

Another point - is there any acknowledgment from him that maybe we are creating more terrorists by our actions than would have existed if we didn't attack Iraq in the first place. Just look at the world view on the US, after 9/11 we had the support of most of the world. Today most of the world has a low opinion of our country. Just imagine how the population of the Middle East must view our actions. Our conduct has been the best recruitment tool for future terrorists

I will agree that we can't solve all the world problems without force, but the Iraq war was not the right call.

Last point - I am a human first.

Supporters of George Bush's war in Iraq, and many of his opponents, cite the removal of the late former President Saddam Hussein as a positive result of this disastrous misadventure. Lacking WMD, President Bush has bragged about ousting Saddam, seemingly as the main reason for going to war, on many occasions. By doing so, in the opinion of many international legal experts, Bush is openly confessing to a war crime. "Regime change" is a polite term for aggression. Mr. Bush has established a clear precedent: if a country, any country, doesn't like the leadership of another country, it is justified in going to war to eliminate that leadership. This is a certain formula for mayhem in international affairs.
I would prefer that Mr. Bush be called to justice in our own country for war crimes and misfeasance or malfeasance in office. But it is clear why the Bush Administration rejects the authority of the International Criminal Court.

you're crazy, riotous one, wars don't always end in victory or defeat. The Korean War disproves that claim. As does the possibility of ending war by a fair negotiated settlement. Israel and Egypt appear to have done that, for example. That's my preferred way for ending wars. Not a fan of John Paul II, but he had eloquent words on the subject of what war means to humanity.

How to fix Iraq 101!!!!
1.Purge the incompetence, i.e.The entire staffs of this administration, this should include all the think tanks that supported this police action. Extraordinary rendition could be used to interrogate and find out exactly what has happened.
2. Remind the rest that "The only way to win a war is kill so many of the enemy that they no longer want to fight." So tell the military who to kill. There are only three choices in Iraq, pick a winner and kill all their enemies - seems we are taking out the Sunni so the Shia can have their theocracy, but then who deals with the Kurds? The Kurds in the north are fairly autonomous and to this day do not fly the Iraq flag on their government buildings. The Kurds, Shia and Sunni are partitioning whether we like it or not.
3.Vote the incumbents out!

RIGHT ON! Harried.

President Bush will be laughing all the way to his retirement fishing hole. He has achieved his goals. Bravo, W ya sold us out and got away with it.

TH

man proposes , god disposes.americans belong to the former not the latter

Pat Riot, excellent feint. Old Atlantic, you are just being a little mean, not that I object. Of all the dangerous things in the world The Righteous are the scariest, they have a lot of energy and they just don't get it.

'In his column yesterday, the WaPo's Robert Samuelson admits that a piece he wrote in 2002 titled "A War We Can Afford" seemed to "bless a war" that in hindsight "should never have been fought." ' In "hindsight"? Anyone (and everyone) with any FORESIGHT already knew the war shoud never have been fought. It didn't take much thought to realize that those in favour of the war simply wanted to kill brown people, any brown people, because of 9/11. Sickening.

Bush/Cheney lied, lied, lied and lied some more. I don't believe a single word that comes out of either of their mouths any longer. 22 months and counting. Maybe, just maybe, we can find someone who isn't a moronic complusive liar to sit in the oval office.

70 percent of the American public thinks Bush is doing a terrible job. The other 30 percent support him only becuase they hate the democrats. (Now there's a logical reason)

Samuelson's apology wasn't much of one. He did say his numbers were terribly wrong, but told us we could still afford it and it wasn't the source of all our budget ills. Thank you Mr. Samuelson. The next time I need to hear an apology I'll ask some one who has the character to admit it when they make a mistake.

It's so tiring to hear the lines about rape rooms and torture chambers dragged out when any person with even the most modest of intellects and inquiring minds recognize that the rape rooms and torture chambers didn't disappear. They just had a change of management. Iraqi and Americans troops and governments, the terrorists, the insurgents do have one thing in common. They have all tortured and murdered Iraqis and raped Iraqi women or are involved in such acts.

It's sad to see that delusion still trumps reality in the minds (I use the word loosely) of some people.

Old Atlantic, quite apart from your tenuous grasp of history (WW1 ended in 1918, not 1917 and I think you'll find quite a few other countries played a part in defeating the Kaiser), I also think it would be great if Bush introduced a draft. The American public would lynch him, Cheney and all their cronies faster than you can say "hell no, I won't go!".

Seriously dude, do you actually think before you post this garbage?

Yes, Saddam was a terrible man who did terrible things. The world is full of terrible rulers, and if we attempted to topple them all in the name of righteousness, the world would descend into chaos even faster than it is at present.

Please examine -- and truly reflect -- on the notion of "preventive war." To this reader, it seems incongruous with longstanding American values. I believe we are in a period in which international law and American political dialogue are in flux, and I invite respectful, productive dialogue on these highly important topics, as opposed to sound bites and ideological barrage. God bless America.

all those pudnits who supported the war owe their readers an apology.
this is the most begruding apology i have ever read, but it was not unexpected. at least the american workers were not blamed for starting this war, even though the claim that that war can be paid for, but that social security and/or universal health care cannot be paid for.

I still find it perplexing the phenomenon on these boards of either bieng for or against Bush. Or extreme leftist rhetoric VS. Neo-con religios zeleotry. People ar e either idiots, war mongers, pacifists,unhinged, members of a cabal, or surrender monkeys. No minds are changed here, no votes either changed or cast. So whats the point? I guess it is to just argue...and very immaturely at that. I find myself taking the bait regularly so I am guilty also. Remember england did not give great weight to our opinion regarding the Falklands and France did not ask our opinion on algeria *was it?*. World opinion is even more fickle than US public opinion. If the war had gone flawlessly we would still have our detractors all over the globe and at home. The objective of the war in iraq is to try and get to the root problems of radical islam by democratizing a country in the middle east to use as a beacon. This was to be a 20-25 year process not an election cycle *issue*. All the ranting has little to do with the safety of the world or americans it has everything to do with gaining power or keeping it here at home. That is the biggest shame of all.

Larson...all wars are pre emptive in some regard. Our UN. International Law and political dialog here at home are in terrible shape. The GOP is correct in my opinion regarding the make up of the UN and Europe is so socialist that many of its social aspects are incompatible with even liberal ideology here. The intanglements of all western nations economies with dictators, regimes, kingdoms and out right bad actors is what is complicating things the most. FR Germany the UK and US business interests have muddied the political morality of us all. I am not anti capitalist I just believe there is a Grand Canyon sized moral disconnect that could be addressed by western democracies. Saying that China and Russia will ever come on board is silly but one can hope.

Pat, you're an idiot, first and last

Yes Pat, God did bless America, he even dipped the country in holy water. Around 1700, normal human beings stopped thinking like this. Unfortunately this country is filled with people like Pat. We are doomed.
Pat, go read Jefferson if you're such a patriot. He would have deported you.

Is there any point at all telling Pat Riot that Islam is not a language? Probably not.

Pat, Old Atlantic, Jim and jim, hello from Planet Earth. You guys are such thoughtless morons. You know, reality doesn't ONLY lie on Fox and the Drudge Report.....there's a whole other world out there.

I feel bad for people like you...people who spend their entire lives living in fear. Of everything and everyone, it seems. You're all so afraid... the boogey man's always out there, and he's coming to get you and we'd better find him and kill him before he does. And then we'd better go find and kill the next one. Geez...wake up! There will ALWAYS be people on this planet who don't agree with, or even like us. You know what? That's ok. Because there will always be people that we don't like. That doesn't mean we plunge the world into chaos to satisfy our own shortsightedness.

You don't really believe Al Qeada and other terrorist organizations are saddling up to come and get Des Moines, do you? Please tell me you don't. That just another scare tactic... why didn't they do that earlier? oh...because they go for big things like 9/11. Right. So they're really not coming for small-town USA. There's not going to be literally gunfighting in the streets (though you guys would probably love it - give you a chance to validate your ridiculous 2nd amendment arguments too...) Please, go hide in your well duct tape-stocked home bunker and just don't ever come out again.

Given how the war has gone in Iraq or, hey, at home in New Orleans after Katrina, is it any wonder president Cheney, oops, VP Cheney's first name is Dick?

b. larson; "preventive war". An oxymoron if I ever heard one. What exactly are we trying to prevent, a war? In reality, this is code speak for "sucker punch". Knock the other person out before he gets his jacket off. Totally un-American and not becoming a supposedly invincible world power. International law is not in flux; our adherence to it and our will to uphold it are in flux. I do not believe in God. But if I did, I would not ask God to bless America but the entire world. It is our own myopic view that is threatening human existence.

I've got an equation for you.
Pat Riot = Bill O'Reilly = Sean Hannity

the rightwing zealots pushing the Iraq war continue telling us that Iraq is different than Vietnam, beacuse this time if we pull out of Iraq without finishing the job, "they" will follow us home. Their other argument is that the troops are all wanting to finish the job, so we owe it to them to keep the war funded to its conclusion.

I draw a comparison to those using this argument. Basing our strategy on what the troops tell us. Iraq war strategy is not unlike to a football game. When your team has fought a tough game, and its 4th down, and a decision has to be made to punt, kick the field goal, or go for 1st down, who makes the decision? Do you allow the offensive unit to decide? 99% of the time, the offensive players on the field will say "go for it", because they have pride in their ability to get the job done. But for the best long term interest of the team, an "impartial" coach is better suited to make that decision. Sometimes its strategically better to punt. But O'Reilly and Hannity and thir like want to keep pouring more billions of dollars and US military forces into Iraq indefinitely, they want to "go for it". Bush is the same, he wants to "go for it".
And none of them have any personal sacrifice invested. They are sending others to fight their war.

So here we are gang. How long does it go on?

Hey people. How long before we wake up and finish the fight with Iran's mullahs? This war began in 1979 when they took the American embassy in Tehran, and we have tapdanced around this Iran problem for 27 years without dealing with it.

So we either make peace with them or go ahead and get the war over with.

But I insist that a military draft be reinstated NOW. It is silly to go on with this volunteer Army to fight a global war on terror. If our leaders cannot convince the public to support this war on terror, than the American public deserves the hell coming its way.

Beinart is delusional. Are you telling me that the interventions we engaged in between Panama and Afghanistan, what the Victorians would have called "Splendid Little Wars, in places like Haiti, Guatemala, Nicagraqua and other Central and South American countries benefitted the people of those countries? The behavior of American forces in thosecampaigns made Abu Ghraib look like summer camp. Compared to those expeditions, My Lai was a bad hair day. Did the people benefit from the overthrow of Arbenz? Was Iran blessed by the fall from power of Mosadegh? The main benefit of winning WWI was WWII, the Spanish flu and a major expansion of illegal alcohol consumption in the Roaring 20's-although to be fair, it did give us Salvador Dali's surrealism, Marcel Duchamp's Dada and the beatific war art of Otto Dix. It also gave us the opportunity to enjoy the output of a slew of dead British poets. As Churchll said, as truly then as now, "Jaw jaw is better than war war". None of these people in the above columns have given a thought to the inherent stupidity of war itself. Butchery is OK with them, just as long as it's done competently and with a weather eye on the bottom line.

Old Atlantic/Pat Riot.

You forgot to mention it was the cheap Saudi Oil that defeated the Soviet Empire.

You also forgot that USA entered WW2 after the Germans were already fighting for over 2 yrs, and you also forgot it was Russian General Zhukov, that destroyed the Nazi war machine.
Remember the Battle of Stalingrad with 1.5million dead on both sides which is probably "the bloodiest battle in history was fought on Aug.21/1942" before USA entered the war.
Also remember that India and China were on our side in WW2. The Punjabi soldiers from the Indian Subcontinent, whom General Montgomery called "the finest infantrymen in the world" fought against Rommel. While the Chinese got the Japanese bogged down in Manchuria , even after the British surrender of over 100,000 men in Singapor.

So far USA has been unable to contain and control the Sunni triangle of 6-8 million
impoverised people, in what is now the 5th year of the war. Inspite of being the worlds biggest arms merchant with the biggest defence budget.
Also you should understand that this war is different in that nearly 50,000 Americans have been maimed or injured. Its not just 3000 dead and 500 billion dollars.
What all this just to get rid of Saddam.
A Chicago gangster could have done a better job for much less.

Abu Garib and Guantanamo have been condemned by the Amnesty international.

American prestige has never been lower.
America deserves better.

If Beinart thinks that the period between Panama and Afghanistan was one "when the United States won wars easily and those wars benefited the people on whose soil they were fought" he wasn't actually paying attention. Working back, Afghanistan and Kosovo are both unfinished; Bosnia's first free election led to the legitimazing of the chief ethnic villians; we invaded Haiti to install their elected leader, then had to invade again to remove him; Somalia's bad guys have only just been defeated, but by Ethiopia rather than us; and Gulf War I concluded with our allowing Saddam to crush the Shi'a uprising, and set the stage for both 9/11 (by causing us to base troops in Saudi Arabia) and the current Iraqi mess. If you want to go back farther, Reagan's CIA created the Jihadi terrorist movement in a mistaken attempt to fight communism, and in the same way alienated us in South America. The truth is that war is not a positive force in the world, and anyone who thinks it is simply hasn't done their homework. Even WWII could have been avoided if the victors had done a better job ending WWI - if they hadn't decided that Germany needed to be humiliated, the Nazi never would have come to power. Is it really too much to ask that our intelligentsia actually *be* intelligent? Or that they have any kind of a critical understanding of history?

God didn't choose America! Some Americans chose God and some didn't and that's al right. G.W. Bush chose to go to war in Iraq and let Osama Bin Laden go free, and that's not alright. In 2008 we get to fire some more war supporters and make it all right. Mount up and ride to the sound of the guns!

The300 needs to go back a little farther: our war with Iran actually started in 1953, when the CIA helped the British overthrow Iran's popular prime minister Mosadegh, in response to his nationalizing Iran's oil industry and kicking out our oil companies. the period between 53 and 79 was simply a lull in the storm. Nice to know GW wants to finally give all that oil back to its rightful owners ;P

Why is it called a *Daily Roundup* when it takes weekends off?

our present predicament could have been attributted to the mess our former leaders had brought in to counter the past problem lurking on us like nazism where we allied to defeat germany,like communism where we fought on religious and ideologic fronts to contain it. the later has put our leaders in the west to support islamic radicalism to free mostly central asian states from soviet domination.After the cold war,islamic extremism went into some other form to wage a struggle against our wordly lifestyle as some imam had said.In a way that the US had help organized and armed this various islamist groups,it then swung around and bite us.We have to reach out farther to the muslimtans all over the world to change things around and stop the hatred toward the west.

Looks like Pat Riot and the GOP still have the delusion that all the terrorists in the world are inside the borders of Iraq, unable to leave. Do they believe there are no other terrorists ANYWHERE ELSE in the world? How many terrorists flew the planes on 9/11?
Has it crossed the minds of these people who insist on keeping in Iraq until they somehow magically kill every terrorist in existance that this is what the terrorists WANT?? All that money, equipment, and troops could be protecting US, not being used as target practice by all sides, including the militias that prop up our good friend al-Maliki*s government! Did you notice today that the sweep of Sadr City turned up NOTHING! Could it be the Iraqi Army *scouts* that run ahead of our troops, warning them to hide their weapons?

Get real, Pat and Old Atlantic! If you want to protect America, the troops need to be here, guarding our borders, not being used as target practice so Bush can send a fake-bravery *message* that only 29 percent of Americans and noone else in the world believes.

Barnart says * We can't be the country those Iraqis wanted us to be. We lack the wisdom and the virtue to remake the world through preventive war."** This d*ck head doesnt speak for me he speaks for the limp wristed lilly liverd leftists in this country. The pelosi's waxmans, boxers, and kucinich's that never had a pair to begin with. We have more than enough wisdom and virtue to remake iraq through preventative war. Maybe this wussie should use his investigative prowess *his assistants* to gauge the effect of the left leaning media and squawk show guests on the american psych. Do something really insightful and useful at the same time.

Congrats Monty Keeling. Your liberal left wing views are getting published in a horribly leftist publication. Some achievement. Anyway, to clarify a point. Jesus said the Jews were his chosen people; he didn't say anything about Israel as a country. In fact, he made it clear he favors NO country.